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This podcast is dedicated to changing the automotive industry for the better, one conversation at a time.
Whether you're a technician, vendor, business owner, or car enthusiast, we hope to inspire you to improve for your customers, your careers, your businesses, and your families.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:01]:
I don't think I've given you this update yet, and I know David knows, but Scott is out here QC and Cars right now, cannot even go home. He won't do it.
Jeff Compton [00:00:14]:
Is that because of home stuff? Like stuff going on at home?
Lucas Underwood [00:00:17]:
And they came back two weeks ago ago. He came in and he said, I don't know what any of this means. Can you help me? They're putting her on a different chemotherapy. I'm like, what do you mean they're putting her on a different chemotherapy? He said, well, they're putting her on a chemotherapy that is this, this and this. And I said, well, let's look into it. So I look it up, and it's kind of like, this is the last resort condom.
Jeff Compton [00:00:48]:
His wife or girlfriend that was out there before. See, I didn't know, even though she was sick. That's terrible.
Lucas Underwood [00:00:55]:
Yeah, so it's inoperable. And I said, well, so what have they found out? And he said, well, it came back doubled in size in her breast after they had taken it out. Doubled in size in her lungs, in her left lung. It grew in her kidney or? No, in her liver. And it's back on the brain. It's back on the bone. Like, man, he's just like I'm on him all the time. Like, dude, go home, go home, go home. He's like, I don't want to go home. I want to be here. I want to be at work. That's what I want to do.
Jeff Compton [00:01:28]:
How long have they been together?
Lucas Underwood [00:01:32]:
Ten years, eleven years, something like that.
Jeff Compton [00:01:36]:
Wow.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:36]:
Long time.
Jeff Compton [00:01:39]:
And she's local to you, right? Like, they live in the area? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:01:49]:
You know that road that we took, that like, I took out there were all the deer, and we kept having to stop. And there are people in the road every couple of miles. If you just go straight out through there, that's where they live, right.
Jeff Compton [00:01:59]:
So remember when you were talking about some of the what is it, the runoff from the Christmas trees or whatever that was causing? Is this what's happening?
Lucas Underwood [00:02:04]:
It yeah, probably. Yeah, I'd say so.
Jeff Compton [00:02:09]:
And your mom went through it.
Lucas Underwood [00:02:10]:
It's crazy, right?
Jeff Compton [00:02:11]:
Yeah. 48 years old and your mom beat cancer, right?
Lucas Underwood [00:02:19]:
Yes. She's not beat it, but long story short, it's going to be manageable for the rest of her life, right? For all intensive purposes, she did beat it, right? There's no doubt about that. That's the thing, is I think that's something we're all going to face one day, right? I remember when all the crazy anxiety started for me. I was like this little kid was watching TV, and it was on PBS or whatever, and they were talking about the fact that if you're over the age of I think it was if you were over the age of ten and you were under the age of 80 in the United States at that time that you were going to die of cancer, the probability was so high that when you died, you'd have cancer, that they were confident in saying, like, hey, this is going to be a thing. It's going to get worse. And I'm like, dude, that's crazy. I look back at it now, I'm like, holy crap. It's still crazy. But it sucks when you see somebody affected like that and she's okay with it. And the thing was, she came back and she's like, the one thing that I'm happy about is I don't have to do radiation because she had to do radiation before. And so when they do radiation on the brain, you lose your eyesight. In some cases you lose your hearing, in some cases you lose your memory. It changes your personality and who you are. It makes you really sick.
Jeff Compton [00:03:39]:
Yeah. You might better be dead, honestly. Like, if you're going to lose who you are, what's the point of being alive? Because you're not really who you were. That's the way I see it.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:49]:
Exactly.
Jeff Compton [00:03:49]:
Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:03:52]:
It'S tough, but I mean, it's hard to say that to somebody and watching them go through this deal where it's almost impossible for him to take care of her. Right. Because she wants to still be herself. She wants to be independent. She wants to be able to do what she wants to do and take care of herself and seeing somebody get to the point we've talked about before.
David Roman [00:04:16]:
How.
Lucas Underwood [00:04:19]:
David will attest to remember, I was always a scrapper. Right. I love to fight, and now I'm getting older and it's like, I know I can't fight like I used to. My back doesn't work like it used to. Right. I'll end up hurting myself. I have to shoot you if I want to kill you. You see what I'm saying? I don't know. I couldn't imagine losing that to that degree.
Jeff Compton [00:04:40]:
My brother woke up the other morning with a because of his neighbor. Right. So he's still at my mom and my dad. Yeah. Because really cord adjourn keeps getting pushed back. So it's been now six weeks that he's been not able to go back to his house. Right. Because of the neighbor. Yeah.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:05]:
Did he get like a gym membership finally or something?
Jeff Compton [00:05:08]:
He calls me the other day. He says, I had this dream where I woke up and the neighbor had stabbed the dog's name is snickers his lab. And he says that the dream was I grabbed the he says, I grabbed a fire axe. I don't know how he got a fire, says, and I bust downed through their front door. And he says, I cut the head off of both of them, kevin and the other guy. That was his dream. And then he said, the cop showed up and he took me off to said he said, I woke up calm, he said, because he said, I felt like that's what that guy had coming and deserved it.
Lucas Underwood [00:05:49]:
Yeah, that's probably not a good I i had this crazy dream the other day and so David, do you use the workflow board in I i had this crazy dream and have y'all ever had a dream that you just can't get out of? You know what I mean? Not even necessarily scary. It's like you wake up and you go back to sleep and you're right back in the middle of it. Or you're like, I don't dream well. I get this thing where I'm partially in consciousness and I'm having this dream, right? And so I came to the shop or that morning, I'm like, I had this terrible dream. It wasn't like a nightmare, but it was like all of these clients calling and all of these vendors calling and all these people wanting money and all these clients calling, like, where's my car? Where's my car? And so in my dream, I'm trying to describe to my employees what it's like. And they're like, oh my God. They're like, what? Why are you all looking at me like that? And they said, because in your dream you're stuck in shop wear. That's terrible.
Jeff Compton [00:07:00]:
They're like, what your dream is telling.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:03]:
Me is that you need to get.
Jeff Compton [00:07:04]:
Away from the shop. And I don't mean away from the shop. Like on one of your trips you're going on. Yeah, like an actual trip vacation for longer than days.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:19]:
Yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.
David Roman [00:07:23]:
Here's what I found is the problems are still there when you get back from the vacation. You're just poorer and slightly older. But everything's still there. Nothing has been fixed.
Lucas Underwood [00:07:35]:
David, tell us what's happened.
Jeff Compton [00:07:37]:
I'm in past couple of weeks, nothing's happened.
David Roman [00:07:42]:
It's just normal shop life. It's the joys of being a shop owner. Hey, did you know that you can reduce your chance of cancer by 60% if you take high dose vitamin D?
Lucas Underwood [00:07:54]:
Really?
David Roman [00:07:54]:
Omega three fatty acids. So a regular dose of that and some exercise and like walking, whatever your fitness. No, this had just come out the last few weeks. I think it was a Danish study. They were checking each one individually. So they were checking like, does exercise have any effect on the risk of cancer? And they found out that it was negligible.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:24]:
Right.
David Roman [00:08:25]:
And no, exercise of course, reduces heart problems.
Lucas Underwood [00:08:30]:
Right. The other things that can cause the.
David Roman [00:08:33]:
Other things that can kill you. But they were checking omega three fatty acid. They were checking vitamin D. We're checking some other things. But those three in combination was the magic pill. 60% reduction in older people.
Jeff Compton [00:08:46]:
But that's not in treatment. That's not prevention.
David Roman [00:08:52]:
Prevention.
Jeff Compton [00:08:53]:
But I mean Prevention. How do they come up with how do they know that it actually worked? How do they know that those people were going to get cancer and it prevented it? Do they just look at genetic markers or do they look at family history?
David Roman [00:09:07]:
So you have a control group and you have a non control group. So you have one that you're giving those three things to and people that you're not giving those three things to and you follow them over a long period of time and you see how many got cancer and how many didn't get cancer. And if 60% reduction, if you take these three things, that group had 60% chance less likely.
Jeff Compton [00:09:35]:
I understand the analytics of how it works. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea of those people might have been predetermined to get cancer anyway, is what I'm trying to say.
Lucas Underwood [00:09:48]:
Well, it's like this situation, right? I think about the situation, you look at some people and they get it and it's something that typically is not easily controlled and they control it. You have other people who and I'll take my wife's Stepdad, for instance, who got it and they treated it once and when it came back, it came back with a vengeance. It was two months, right? And the same thing with the situation we're just talking about is when it came back, they dealt with it, but then it went everywhere. And so the research that we did is there's two different types of breast cancer or there's probably more than that. But what I was reading is there's like a hers this and a hers that. And so one of them has like these little antennas on it. And so if it has those little antennas, it's going to absolutely spread like wildfire everywhere into everything. And it's just like that. If you have that, it's a bad sign, right? And so they say like, hey, if you get this, you have to take very aggressive action very quickly. And I definitely don't want to take my advice on it because I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. But I was reading it to talk to them about this medication because they didn't understand it and trying to understand, to help him understand so he knew what to expect. It goes back to the side effects. We always laugh about the side effects because you're like, if I take that medication, right, and you see all that list of side effects and one of the side effects of it is death. I was talking to her about it and she said, well, but you don't understand. It literally says the second most common side effect is a lung issue that causes death. But that's not going to change the outcome of this. This might extend it, but either way, that is the outcome. I've always struggled with that outcome, right? And the reality that it's coming for all of us, like when I was a kid, that was a hard thing for me to grasp. My parents always did this thing with religion where they're know you should just pray about it and by the stripes of Jesus, you're healed and they did it with all the love in the world, right? But me as a kid, I looked up and I'm like, well, there's some magical thing that's going to protect me, and I'm going to be okay, and it's all going to be immortal. And then one day you wake up and you realize you're not immortal, right? You could walk outside tomorrow and that could be like you you own a shop, and after owning a shop for a while, you're kind of like, well, golly, when's it coming, man? Like, bring it. But sorry, David, that was your know.
David Roman [00:12:44]:
I don't know where Christians get this idea that if they pray, they'll be protected physically. There's a story in the Bible, the guy's name was Stephen. Stephen was talking to the Jews. He had been converted, and he was talking to them about some of the stuff that they had done in the past, specifically persecuting people that were sent to them by God. God would send people out, hey, we need you to do this. And they would persecute these people. So he's pointing this out. Now, they were very upset by this, but this is a devout man. Stephen is and you would think that if physical protection was a thing, that he wouldn't have met the fate that he did. And what happened to him was he was dragged out to the city outskirts and he didn't stop his rebuking, and they picked up stones and they pelted him to death, and they stoned him, while another guy, his name was Saul, was holding everybody's coats while they got loosened up and stoned him to death. Now, here's a devout man that you would think he could call up and say, hey, God protect me, but that's not how that works. He was stoned to.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:02]:
So it's interesting you bring that up, because, like we were talking about and Jeff, I think I sent it to you. Brian and I were talking about it, but that Jordan Peterson interview where he was talking to the Catholic priest, right? And they were talking about the Passion story, and what did he believe? Like, the story of the Passion really was deep down inside, and then he was talking david, I didn't get that either. Did you watch that?
David Roman [00:14:29]:
I didn't get it.
Lucas Underwood [00:14:32]:
So he's talking about the two primary stories that he had studied in the Bible, and he's talking about Moses, and he was talking about Moses's followers that were continually being bitten by serpents, right? And they had faced tyranny under the ruler, and now they come out and they go into the desert for what was it, David? 40 years or something like that. So they go into the desert and they're attacked by these snakes, and they go to Moses and they said, hey, listen, you kind of got a good connection with God. Couldn't you ask Him to help us with these snakes? And so Jordan Peterson's talking about and he said, so Moses goes to God. And God didn't take the snakes away. What did God do? He told him to put a serpent on his staff. And he said so the way that he interpreted that was is that it was God saying that the challenge is the meaning of life, right? Your cross to bear is the meaning of life. Like, that hardship, that struggle, there is no chance that you're going to get out of life without it. And so he went on to talk about clinical psychology, and he said that when they were teaching people how to get over an anxiety, how to get over something, I personally connect with this, right? Because when they're teaching them to get over that, they get them to voluntarily face their fears, like their worst fear, and so they have them voluntarily face it. And so the point was, by putting the serpent on the staff and stabbing it into the ground, it was that the people realized that the challenge was the thing they were overcoming. That was the purpose of being there. That was the meaning of their lives. And so he points out that in clinical psychology, it took them hundreds of years to figure that out, but the story in the Bible literally laid it out like that, in his opinion of how it was before. And so he goes on and he talks about the passion story. I'll send you both the link again so you can watch it. But he's talking about the passion story. And he said at the clinical level, when you're interviewing people and you're talking to people who have fears and anxieties and all of these different things, he said one of the primary fears that human beings have is being unfairly persecuted. And he's like, I'm not talking about they know how to analyze that and put it in words and explain it. But he said, think of the passion story. It was this perfect human being who was wholly perfect, right? Like, there was no even question to the fact they were perfect and they were genuinely wholly good, right? There was nothing bad about them, and yet they were persecuted. And they were persecuted in the worst possible way. And it was like the sum of all fears for the human psyche. And I thought that was just an interesting perspective or an interesting way to look at that concept.
David Roman [00:17:19]:
Well, it is interesting, but it's something everybody ignores. Everybody ignores that part. I don't know why.
Jeff Compton [00:17:27]:
Which part that? You mean that.
David Roman [00:17:31]:
Everybody the suffering part? Everybody like, oh, just pray on it. Pray on what exactly? What am I supposed to escape? What is it that God is not going to is going to prevent me from experiencing that the Son of God. If you believe it, you don't believe it, but if you believe it, the Son of God was just as Lucas laid out, unfairly persecuted, beaten within an inch of his life, and then suffered the most humiliating death at the time that you could experience. He didn't escape suffering.
Jeff Compton [00:18:10]:
I was just going to say, before you got on that tangent, I think what I drew from what he was just saying and what you were mentioned when you say, well, nobody's escaping suffering. Maybe it's the fact that they're already seeking something is already the suffering that they're in. Do you understand what I mean by that? Like, already suffering. That's why they're seeking. So I don't think it's anybody you said everybody ignores the suffering.
David Roman [00:18:37]:
No, everybody ignores that they're not going to escape the suffering like they are suffering. I understand that they want relief, but the fact they're going down the wrong.
Lucas Underwood [00:18:48]:
Path to seek it, there's no acknowledgment of the suffering is the path.
David Roman [00:18:52]:
The suffering is life. That's part of the human existence. Like, yes, you're going to suffer, it's going to be miserable, and then you die. Guess what? That is a human experience. Anything outside of that is a way out, the way anomaly.
Jeff Compton [00:19:12]:
We've made it where everybody is. We're trying to eliminate the victim. Nobody wants to be a victim of anything, right? And it's just it's easier to say instead of you just screwed up your own choices and that's why you're on the path that you are. We always want to just paint ourselves as the victim, which absolves us of all responsibility for the poor choices that we made. That's what I've come to really grasp.
David Roman [00:19:35]:
Well, I agree with you there. I agree with you there. But think of people that aren't victims of their own fault. Think of a child that is suffering from cancer or a child yet gets in a drunk driver plows into that vehicle, and now they're fighting for their lives. And you look at that, and that is injustice. You look at that and go, why is this happening to this child? This is horrible. This child's never going to live a normal life. Or maybe they're going to die at an early age. I was reading the most horrific story of this girl. She had gotten pregnant. She was, I think, 16 or 17 years old. So you can imagine that's already a bad situation. This girl gave birth to this child in the hospital, put the child in a bag, put the oh yeah, Alex was telling child in the trash can and then left.
Lucas Underwood [00:20:32]:
And you know, why did you read why?
David Roman [00:20:35]:
Days later, she was seen with pictures. She was taking pictures at her prom. Was that the same story?
Lucas Underwood [00:20:44]:
Lucas yeah. She did that because she thought the mom would kill her. Her mom.
David Roman [00:20:51]:
I didn't read that part. She was at the prom with her boyfriend like nothing had happened. A couple of days later, they found the child in the trash can. The hospital workers found the child in the trash can with a plastic bag wrapped around.
Jeff Compton [00:21:07]:
Maybe it must have been born pretty premature.
Lucas Underwood [00:21:09]:
Now, the mom didn't know she was pregnant. The story I heard was the mom didn't know she was pregnant. She had hid or she may not have even known because that can happen. And so she was so afraid of the mom's reaction. Now, as a parent, right, I look at that and say, what kind of failure have I been as a parent that you don't think that you can be honest with me and talk to me about these things?
David Roman [00:21:31]:
But even then, though, okay, you want to hide it. But how do you leap from I'm going to hide it to I'm going to throw it in the trash. I don't get that that leap is difficult to make. But here's what my point is, that that child was born into this world and then experienced being thrown into a plastic bag with its head wrapped in plastic and then thrown into a trash to suffocate and die. That's not justice, right? And you look at those situations, not the kid's fault, right? Not the kid's fault. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong mother. So how do you justify that in your head? How do you look at that and go, well, why would God let that happen? Everybody's mistake. That's not God letting it happen. That is going to happen as a natural course of things that are just happening in daily life, suffering. Even if the mother hadn't killed the child and allowed the child, can you imagine that type? She's, to a certain point, a psychopath, right.
Jeff Compton [00:22:39]:
David, you gotta make me a promise person does this. When I get to AST, we need to sit down and discuss this religion for like a couple hours because I'm actually really interested to hear and I'm not trying to change the just while it's in here because I really want to pick your brain about some of it, if you don't mind.
David Roman [00:22:58]:
Well, I answer your questions real quickly. It's suffering is existence, just like Lucas said. If the Son of God can't escape it, what makes you think that we are? There is no sense in asking for something that is never going to be granted to you. And that's not how that works anyways. But aside that even if you don't want to make that leap, which is very difficult for some people to make that leap, but if you're going to say that, oh, if I just pray on it, god is going to grant me healing or God is going to do this for me, or that or whatever. Even in situations of extreme injustice, such as the Son of God, a perfect man suffering torture and then death, god didn't intervene. Okay? Let's say that, well, his role was to come to earth and die for the sins of man. Okay? That's the way it's spelled out in the Bible, let's say. Well, yeah, he wasn't going to be relieved of his suffering. Paul, who wrote most of the new testament talks about suffering in two corinthians. He talks about what he had to experience, that in five times he was beaten by his fellow brethren 40 lashes less one, is what he says. And that he was beaten with rods three times, and that he was stoned and that he experienced shipwrecking to the point where he was left adrift at sea with no hope, for days at a time. And he talks about over and over and over all these things that had happened to him. You read that and you go, this is a devout man who wrote most of the New Testament, essentially shaping all of Christianity. That person didn't escape suffering. What makes you think I am?
Lucas Underwood [00:24:52]:
Well, here's the thing. I've talked about it a lot and I'm going to catch shit for saying somebody's going to end up drunk tonight, because I think I've said, right, and I've mentioned this before, but the drinking game is in full fledged right now. I really connect with the anxiety side of the story, right? Because I went through that personally and it was tough. I got myself all out of sorts over this. It was stupid. I look back at it and I think, god, how stupid was I to be in the situation that I was in? I went and talked to somebody and it was at some point in talking to a clinical psychologist that they're like, hey, you realize that you have two choices. You can accept the suffering as it is and you can lay in pity in the suffering and you can complain about it and you can talk about it, and you can be immersed in this terrible experience to where you can't get out of bed over the fear of something that may or may not even happen. Or you can embrace that because that is your life, right? Like the fears of these things happening. You were going to experience fears your entire life. And then so fast forward all these years later, and there is one particular, and it's the one video that got me watching some of the Jordan Peterson stuff, because it's when he's young and he's teaching in school, right? And he's walking around, he's talking to these young people in this class, and they had asked a question, and he's like, you will have to pick your shit up, and you will have to face things that you don't feel like facing. And you will have to encounter challenges and struggles and things that you don't want to encounter, because that is life. And you will have no choice but to either march forward or you will stop. And he goes on and he explains and he's like, what I'm trying to say is life is not effing fair. It's never going to be fair. Stop expecting life to be fair. Stop expecting it to always be fun. And I think social media paints this picture of how great everybody else's life is you're not seeing what they're going through. It's a highlight reel. And so we look at technicians and shop owners, right? I had this thought today, and I just about sat down and did a live stream video in the group before we sat down to record. And I started to say, like, hey, maybe the first thing that we need to do is start by being kind to each other. Because I was watching, like, a technician had said something, a bunch of owners piled on, and it wasn't just in the group, it was somewhere else. And then it was a owner who had said something, a bunch of texts piled on and said this, this, and this and this, right? Because it's all friends. And I've run in this group of friends on Facebook, they're all friends. So I see their comments and I see what they're thinking. You know, maybe if we started by trying to be kind and understand where the other person's coming from, you know what I'm saying? Like, let's stop trying to dictate what it is that we feel and force our opinion. And it's really that everybody's being treated poorly or I'm going to catch shit for this. But in the group itself, I have felt like many times there is some serious entitlement or victim mentality going on, right? Like, if you don't like what is happening, then for God's sakes, change it. Well, I can't change it, man. Listen, if you can change if you can't change it, nobody can change it, right? Like, I don't have any more potential of changing than anybody else does. Jeff, you don't have any more potential of changing than anybody else does. It's your actions every day.
Jeff Compton [00:28:26]:
If I thought I couldn't make change or couldn't bring change or couldn't bring a different perspective, I wouldn't be doing any of this, right.
Lucas Underwood [00:28:35]:
Exactly. That's what saying. Like, if you don't take action, if you don't do something about it, if you're just going to sit there and complain about it, for God's sakes, get off the bus, man. Right. And it bothers me because I think in some ways we've got that victim mentality. And look, me and you have had some really tough conversations about this because I really looked up, like, I looked up to you. We were in that group, the Treehouse, right? Remember that? And it started an at, and I think it was Michael Costa started the group or something like that. I can't remember who it was. And so there was like some weird stuff going on there and we became friends in the treehouse. And so I looked up to you and I thought you always talked about all these ways technicians were treated. So I really tried to build a business that didn't treat technicians that way. But I remember at one point I had to come to you, and I guess that was right before ASTE last year, maybe. But I had. To come to you and say, like, dude, you've got to seek first to understand here. I don't think you're seeing it for what it really is. And that's because you're my friend and I care about you and you would listen to me. But how many of these people don't have somebody, a, that's willing to stand up and say that to them, right? And then B, how many people would listen?
Jeff Compton [00:29:48]:
Because it breaks my heart when you and I are not on it's. Like when you say no, you don't get to have an attitude or you start to talk to me like I'm one of your kids. It breaks my heart because our relationship is something that I value, probably put ahead of so many other people's, right. It's not even fun. So when we're not on the same, it's like I tease you. I can't come to you in the morning because you're not a morning person. I can't come to you in the morning because you're short fused in the morning. If it hadn't been for so much respect for what I see, what you're trying to do and why you can come to me and say no, you've got to think about it from this angle. Anyone else, I would tell the fuck right off, right? Because you're the only one. Brian and I were just talking about this. You're the only one, David, as well, that can hold me to task on what I feel about the industry or what I feel about what needs to change or what is good or what is bad or what's not fair. Because everyone else, they don't have the respect. I don't have the respect for them that I have for you. Do you understand what I mean?
Lucas Underwood [00:30:59]:
Right. Of course. And I'm honored by that more than you know. And here's the thing, is that I have watched this, right? Because I'm the one editing your show and I've watched your mindset expand, right. You've developed into a different human being over the last six months because you're hearing these stories and you're seeing these different perspectives and you're hearing what these people are going like. I remember listening I think it was the Justin Porter episode, right? And I'm listening to the Justin Porter episode and I'm hearing you when you're responding to Justin, because I'm hearing you say the experiences I know me and you have talked about that you've been through. And then you hear Justin sharing.
David Roman [00:31:49]:
Where.
Lucas Underwood [00:31:50]:
He had been from and it didn't even seem like anything was a struggle about that. He just jumped in and did it and it was just a thing, right? And I hear you throughout that episode change your mindset and your perspective based on what he's saying, right? And it's the same thing with our podcast, right? Because David and I, we won't say the name, but there was an episode a while back where we were talking to somebody that were very successful. And David and I went out to the car after the episode, and we're going to get some lunch and we had a heart to heart over there's a certain set of rules that we both kind of try and follow, and we're pretty much in alignment. These are important things to us about how we run our business. And I'll never forget David saying, like, man, are we, like, sacrificing success for our family and all these other things to live by this? Should we just give it all up? And like that's an interesting you remember that conversation, David?
Jeff Compton [00:32:48]:
For sure, yeah, that's an interesting.
David Roman [00:32:52]:
I don't I don't value our relationship like that.
Jeff Compton [00:32:56]:
They're all throwaway not to you.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:02]:
No, he's talking to me. But I also know that it's completely BS at that, know, and that's the thing is that I think that in, right? We go through life and there come these like it's not even a fork in a road. It's like you get a mile down the road and you look in the rearview mirror and you say, I don't know if I took the right path, right? It's just like building this new shop. There are days that I come in.
Jeff Compton [00:33:36]:
Here and I'm glad you said that.
Lucas Underwood [00:33:41]:
This may have been the worst mistake I've ever made in my life. I mean, I took all of my retirement, I took all of my kids college fund, I took every dime of money and put it into this, right? And there are days that I think I effed up and there's days that I'm like, holy cow, we're going to make this work, right? And I think that's the human element because we're always on this roller coaster of know, we talk a little. Me and you were talking about Brian the other day and talking about the fact that Brian very much gets on that roller coaster of life and it can be very up and down and it can be hard for him to find his place in that. I hope that so many of these people that are in the group that you see going through that stuff and they share their challenges and they share their frustrations. I hope they've got somebody to talk to, right? Like, if it wasn't for you and David being willing to listen to me.
Jeff Compton [00:34:32]:
Bitch lucas, like the other night when you said to me, you said we couldn't use Jonathan's because the audio is terrible and you were like, it's fucked up, and we wasted $40 in credits and all this kind of stuff, I was being genuine. And when I sincerely said to you but when you feel what I feel at talking to them, how just having that conversation I had it with Cody last night, right? How it unburdens them. I don't care if anybody ever hears that, right? Or if it ever makes me a nickel. Do you understand what I mean? And you say of course, Jeff, you wasted 2 hours. But these people feel so much better. Lucas when they talk to me, like my phone blows up, now it's with people that are contacting me going, oh my God, this podcast is like it says something. This is not me bragging, right? This is just the reality that people are constantly reaching out to me, going with what this podcast is doing. And it makes me feel because I feel like I spent so many years just bitching and complaining and whining. Now, there were some positives that came out of that in the sense that we had a united group of people that actually started a conversation that is still open. It's still an open conversation, right? But I feel like now with me being able to go in one on one with these people, some of them I know, some of them don't, and I'm hearing their stories and I'm seeing that weight come off of them when they tell, right. To me, it's not wasted at all. When I get done just talking to these people, I can't go to sleep. I'm so hyped up, I'm so wired because I don't go to church, right? I haven't been to church in ten years, probably. I feel like that feeling that I used to get, though, you know what I mean? When we come out of there unburdened, like everything that had gone throughout the week, when I walked out of the church on Sunday morning after I felt unburdened, I felt like the next week was going to be better, having conversations.
Lucas Underwood [00:36:38]:
Well, I remember yeah, of course. That's the thing, is that there are conversations that need to be had, there are discussions that need to be had, and in some sense of the word, it's a safe place to have those conversations, right? We've done this on our show many times, but you start talking and it becomes a real conversation about life. And I think it's important to talk and share about life, and you talk about being unburdened. I'll never forget the look on your face. One of the episodes that I hate, we missed the video from occasionally when we're recording, you'll lose a video file, and we very rarely lose an audio file, but occasionally you'll lose a video file. But one of the ones that I really hate, that we lost was at the end of ASTE last year when me and you sat down and we were recording in that room back in the back, and we're just sitting down, talking and watching, you have the realization that, A, it's not just our industry that's up against these struggles and these challenges and these frustrations, but B, that so much of this A, it's perception, but there is a whole group of people in this industry that are doing something about it. Right? That they're trying to change it. That they don't want people to be jaded, that they really want to take care of their people who work in the business. I shouldn't share, but I'm going to. We were at a training event a while back and somebody that I know and personally care very much about owns a shop. And in this training event they had an employee there and they were going to be critiqued on some of their performance. And when they realized they were going to be critiqued on their performance, they started saying really nasty things about the shop owner, right? Yeah, it was terrible. And they were saying nasty things about the shop and they were given all of these reasons. There's this concept of framing, right. You know what I'm talking about when I say framing. Like when you sometimes it's for us up here mentally for ourselves. And sometimes we're trying to position ourselves in a certain way in front of a group of people or a certain person. But we begin to say and do things that paint the picture that we want to paint, right? And it may be true, it may be untrue, but you can usually pick out somebody out of a crowd who's trying to frame, right. They're trying to say it a certain way. They're trying to go ahead and put things out in front before something happens and go ahead and explain away what's getting ready to happen, if that makes sense. And so I could tell from the conversation that she was framing or they were framing. And we get through this conversation and the call was pretty tough to listen to and some of the feedback was pretty rough about the call. And I just think in so many ways we've had all of these discussions about how bad techs are treated and these guys are coming into these groups sharing their experiences. You've got these owners who are sharing their perspective about techs and talking all this crap about this one tech that did this one thing and you've got them coming into these groups and sharing their experiences. In social media, there's not a way to verify what somebody's telling is the truth, right? I watched this story unfold directly in front of my eyes and dude, I'm telling you, I know it's a lie, right? It's absolutely a lie. There's no ifs or buts about it. And I'm thinking about all of the social media and all the groups and all the things that are said and how ramped up in some ways we've gotten. And I'm thinking about how easy it would be for somebody to come into one of these groups and say all of these things and none of it be true, right. And so my message has always been to you, well, seek first to understand.
Jeff Compton [00:40:59]:
Ask questions.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:01]:
Don't just automatically jump to a conclusion.
Jeff Compton [00:41:03]:
Ask questions ten times a day, every day. Now it's stuck in my head and that's what cause we'll talk about young Colin, right? There's a guy that I'm still on the fence about what he really is, you know what I mean? I think he's got talent. I think he's know. And when somebody said to me, I don't know if you saw the threat or not, well, he has no passion, right? For him to move around that much and quit this place and that place and he has no passion, that's the most asinine statement I think I've seen in regards to that young man, that he has no passion to think that what he's doing, going out and speaking about how he feels, that takes passion, right? It takes conviction.
Lucas Underwood [00:41:46]:
Of course.
Jeff Compton [00:41:46]:
You're putting yourself out there. You're bearing your soul about what's frustrating you, what hurts your feelings about what you do for a job. Right now, at the same time, it's really hard for me to wrap my head around some of these people when they go like, I made six figures and I still am pissed right off I'm not making six figures. And I know, like you and I have talked about, I know shop owners that don't pay themselves as much as I get paid, so I know for shit they ain't making six figures.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:16]:
Yeah, of course.
Jeff Compton [00:42:17]:
But yeah, he's still all fed up with the industry and wants out. But then I remember that it doesn't really matter. Lots of days, I had days where the day before I made 15 hours. And then they came in and I was only going to make four. And they did something to me that I didn't like, and it made me feel like disrespected and not important. And undervalued all those analogies, I wasn't doing the math to go in a positive mindset and go, well, it still balances out, right? Like 16 and four is still me. That's fucking ten. That's a great average.
Lucas Underwood [00:42:50]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:42:50]:
I was so focused on the only making four and whatever it was they did to me, he's in that same spot right now.
Lucas Underwood [00:43:03]:
I take it back to my dad when I was little, right? My dad always wanted me to do the menial frustrating task. God, I look back at it, I'm like, man, I should have kept my mouth shut, you know what I'm saying? I was making really good money. I was being really well taken care of. But he was teaching me when he was building houses, he was teaching me that the cleanliness of the job site and the way it looks and the way you present it. Listen, son, it'll be a lot easier if you do it now before it's all piled up everywhere. You're going to be more pissed off about spending 4 hours loading up a pile of scrap wood than you are spending an hour a day loading up a pile of scrap wood, right? I didn't realize that he was teaching me life lessons in that. I realized that now. I realized that there was value in that, and I see it in the shop every single day when I go back here. I was blessed to have an awesome dad who was doing that for me, right? But I think about that from time to time, and I think back, like, it's how we frame it in our own minds. It's the perspective that we give ourselves. It's how we look at things. And if you continually look at everything like it's terrible, everything will always be terrible, right? And if you look at things in a positive light and you say, look, this is not awesome, but I'm going to make the best of it, then what does it mean for you? It means at least you can be happy while it's happening, right? Because we're talking about the challenge, we're talking about the strife, we're talking about the tyranny of life, for God's sakes. It's not going away. It's always going to be there. And it doesn't matter if it's in this know, we just did an interview with the Chamber of Commerce and he's like, I kind of asked the question like, you're talking about construction. Are they having trouble getting help? Oh, yeah, they can't get help either. What about electricians? Yeah, they can't get help either, right. And they've faced the same plight that we have. Well, they didn't treat them right, and we didn't want to train the next generation and all these things that we didn't do right. Well, for God's sakes, we know we didn't do them right. Let's do something different now, right? Let's take a different step. Let's go a different something. I was listening to that Colin episode, right? And I will never forget. So I was going back and I was like, pulling little sections out and adjusting stuff here and there. And he said, I don't think it's right when the book calls for one, that they're marking it up and they're charging them like one and a half or two. I don't think that's right for the client. And all I could think to myself was, dude, you've created a basis of what you believe is wrong. Like, you have created this set of guides, you've put this ruler up on right and wrong, but you didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing, right? You didn't ask the question of hypocrisy.
Jeff Compton [00:46:00]:
Of some of the things he said as an example of that. And then to next to say that I was only getting three tenths more on a job to do something, and I'm listening to him do the interview, and I'm sitting here thinking, okay, but dude, you're contradicting yourself. It doesn't make sense because saying that they shouldn't be able to mark it up to 1.5. Now, I don't know if in the context it was like, they're marking up to 1.5, but they're only paying him one. But I didn't get that feeling. I think what he was feeling is the book time was an hour. They marked it up to 1.5. He got 1.5. He probably knocked it out in 0.5 and felt that the customers ripped off. But in the next breath he's talking about he doesn't make up any time. You have never heard me in any of my time that we've talked about anything, felt that I felt bad that the customer got charged above and beyond whatever the book said. You've never heard me complain about that because I've always looked at it as like, I've given so much for free. I believe in karma. That's just it coming back around to me.
Lucas Underwood [00:46:59]:
Well, I mean, here's the thing. It's like there's a balance in business, right? And the business is supposed to be there to be profitable. And I don't look at a labor guide like this is a Bible and this is what we have to charge. I look at it and say, if it was a perfect world, my guy's going to work 40 hours this week. This is a way for me to look at it and say, here's a guideline that I can follow and a rough guess of how long it should take him. You know what I want to do? I want to bill my guy 40 hours a week, every single week, right? I know we build pay plans for over 40. I think we should normalize a 40 hours work week. I think we should normalize a 40 hours work week. I think we should normalize it in such a way that you can earn a living in 40 hours. But to do that, what do you have to do? Well, you have to charge appropriately and you have to bill appropriately. Now, I know in some states you can't do it. I don't necessarily believe that talking about labor hours and part dollars to a client is responsible. I don't think it's any of their business. Mr. Client, what I'm providing for you is a repaired car. Now, Dutch absolutely hates that. He hates that. But I'm going to tell you something.
Jeff Compton [00:48:08]:
Give a flip about how many hours the job is supposed to take. They want the price of that. They want the car fixed. That's it. They don't care because the hours to them doesn't mean anything. Because they think that either the two scenarios are we do it much faster than they could possibly do, so it's just a fictitious number, or they always do it in less time than what they're charging me for anyway. And they don't care. They just want to know the alternator is $799 and can I pick it up at 05:00?
Lucas Underwood [00:48:31]:
That's all they care about. But instead, what have we done? What have we done? Instead of creating an environment where that's always the case, we've created an environment where we basically tell them to scrutinize what we do, right? We've created an environment where they come back and they say, well, but it has this many hours on it. But it was only at the shop for this long. We've created that environment. Now, look and the thing of it is, if we would normalize that, we are professionals and we should be paid as professionals. And auto repair is not supposed to be cheap. And if we repair cars correctly and you take your car to a true professional that knows what they're doing and spinning their mic around in circles, you're fine. And so you take it and you truly, genuinely build an industry that has value.
Jeff Compton [00:49:25]:
No.
Lucas Underwood [00:49:25]:
Then it's not a conversation anymore, right? I want my car properly repaired. I want it to be reliable. I want to have a warranty so I know this is what it takes to accomplish that. Great. Yet when we talk to technicians, one of the common things we always see, well, the reason I'm not getting as much work is because they're charging too much up front. Well, we should get 50% of the door rate. How many times have I had to explain that the math doesn't work, right? 40 maybe. But the reality is that there are percentages that come out of that that the tech doesn't see. There has to be a specific formula for how the tech is paid because that's how we make our business sustainable. That's how we do it consistently, right? If you want to be paid more, we need to raise rates across the board. The shop needs to be more profitable. Now, look, I get it. I'm not talking chain stores, right? Chain stores will absolutely siphon every single dime and every single dollar out of everybody they can because all they care.
David Roman [00:50:27]:
About is the boat.
Lucas Underwood [00:50:28]:
And I shouldn't say just chain stores, right? But you look at a national chain and you watch what they do and how they do it. It has nothing to do with fixing cars, right? Nothing to do with fixing cars. What is it about? It is solely about putting percentages on the PNL for the shareholder.
Jeff Compton [00:50:52]:
That tire store in Boom. That's all it's about, right? And they roll, what are they, seven days a week or six days a week?
Lucas Underwood [00:50:57]:
Yeah, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. Every single week, baby. Right? Every single week. Yeah. To them, it's not about the people. To them, it's not about the car.
Jeff Compton [00:51:11]:
To them, it's not about the car. How many units did we move last month versus last month of the same month of last year versus the last five versus last ten? And a trend, right? That's all it's about. It's just a game.
Lucas Underwood [00:51:25]:
I talked to a principal at a car dealership one time and he had sold his dealership out to a big corporation. And I asked him, I said, man, I said, they are doing some really skeezy things. As a matter of fact, I bought a car from them. And long story short, when I bought that car from them, what had happened was I went in to buy the car. And I said, I have a check. I have cash money to pay for the car. I financed it through my bank because I got a killer rate. And he comes in and he says, oh well, I thought you wanted to finance it through us. I can't give you that price unless you finance it through us. And I said, no, we already made a deal. We've already got the paperwork. We've got everything done. And he said, well, couldn't you just sign the financing thing? I won't put it through, but I'll get more commission if you do that. And I said, Nah, man, I'm not doing that right. And he said, okay, well, let me see what I can work out, okay? This dude goes in the back, I'm there for 3 hours and he comes back and he's like, well, what we've done is we've gone ahead and processed the financing. I never signed the paper. We've gone ahead and processed the financing and you just take this check and you pay off the financing. Now wait a minute. A how did you get financing in my name? B that's not right. You know what I'm saying? That's wrong. And so I was talking to the dealer principal that had been bought out by this organization and he said, I'm going to tell you something. He said, they are not a dealership. They don't sell cars. I said, they don't sell cars? He's like, no, listen, that's not what they're in the business of doing. He said the cars are just the tool, the vehicle that they need to create profit. He said, they're a finance company. I said, what do you mean? He said, they work with Chase and they work with Citi, and they work with all of these banks. And they get a cut of each of the financing programs and then they put their interest rate on top of it. And so they're getting a take on the financing. And he said, So when they do that, he said, this entire organization is set up on financing cars. And he said, do you know what equity mining is? And I'm like, what is equity mining? And he said, well, he said, it means that if a car comes to your shop, they're paying someone to get the information from the car. And if it looks like it's going to be a big repair at your shop and they can get that information, or if it looks like it's an older car and it's something that they could potentially trade on, they are going to contact that client and tell them to come over here to the dealership and we'll make you a deal you can't refuse. They do the same thing when the car is in the dealership. You've seen them do it. You work for a dealer, right? The whole purpose was to turn cars. And he said, all of that is built on the premise of making money on financing these organizations like that dude, they are absolutely not about the technician, they're not about the service advisor, they're not about the client and they're not about the car. And so I hope that if anything, through the change in the industry group and through the jaded mechanic and through all of the efforts that we've put together ASTE the stuff, asta is doing the stuff that MOCCA is doing the stuff that all of these organizations are putting together and putting on paper is that the independent auto repair industry is not that. Are there bad shops out there? Yes, but the majority of them are bad shops because they learned how to run a business from someone like that. They saw how technicians were treated and thought that's just how they ought to be treated.
Jeff Compton [00:54:57]:
They referenced it more than once with some of the coaching tactics that are being done. To me, it's old news. It's an old song and dance because it's exact same stuff that we watched if you worked in a dealer 15 years ago was exactly what they were taught to do, right down to the T. I don't have to. Read some of the coaching people that we don't necessarily align with and we know the names we're talking about to know that I could probably sit back and read the book and I would put it down at a boredom because it's familiar. Read. I know exactly how they want to treat the customer, how they want to treat their people. It doesn't change. It comes from the new car dealership method is now, I think is what's trickling into our industry and it scares the bejesus out of me because if I see that, I can tell you right now they're not playing long ball, they're playing very short handed game and it will not last. We got talking earlier tonight about how what's got me scared is the absentee owner trend that seems to be coming up. And the idea that you work on the business, in the business and I can see both sides of that argument, but makes it really I think is scary is if we think we've got a problem now with trying to get technicians. When you try to look at a young guy like Colin, for instance, I think half of his battle is the fact that most of the people, like he said, when he's working for, they're not techs, they've never been. So he takes it as a real personal mark when they tell him how long it should take to do a job or I would have done that faster, or something like that. Brian and I talk about this all the time. I have a really hard time now working with somebody that's never been a tech, working for them, judging me or telling me I would have done it this way, or why was it done even questioning me. Because I just feel like who are you. To say. Whereas if somebody has been attack, I can sit down and take the criticism, take the input. I may not like it, but I can utilize it. I can use it. I don't blow my top over it, right? And that's something that I think is scaring me when I see the trend of more and more owners that are not going to be involved or more and more owners that maybe even never put a wrench to a car as maybe this industry starts to turn around and becomes lucrative and people start to get into it again. I don't necessarily see the next generation of techs being all on board with working for people like that.
Lucas Underwood [00:57:25]:
Well, I'll counter that a little bit. Okay? So A, the way that we get techs paid, what they need to be paid is the owner needs to be working on the business, not in the business. Okay? And the reason for that is because if the owner is working on the business, they have a better perspective. Remember that thread from a couple of days ago? Dude was talking about the transmission shop in Kentucky, and he was saying, like, man, I can't pay my bills. All this stuff's going on. And what was my response? Dude, you're too ingrained in it. You're too emotional. You're in it right now. You're in the shop.
Jeff Compton [00:58:03]:
Half of those customers are probably in there. He probably knows about a first name, gives him a hug or a handshake or whatever, knows him from the car club, and they're coming in there with all this disposable income, and then they're nickel and diming him to death because they don't feel that the door rich.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:17]:
They have a relationship.
Jeff Compton [00:58:18]:
What it is.
Lucas Underwood [00:58:22]:
If he had been working on the business, if he had a higher perspective that he could look at you. I love my team, and you know that. But there have been situations where Eric and I have had to have some hard discussions, and Terry and I have had to have some hard discussions, and I've had to call David and been like, hey, how should I handle? Like, I don't know what to do. And we've had to deal with some things. And I'm telling you, if I had been any closer to my team than what I am, I don't think I would have seen it. I don't think I would have been able to intervene. I think it would have led to a situation where it would have turned into one of them being jaded and frustrated because Lucas didn't come and talk to me and he doesn't understand what I'm going through, and he's just frustrated at me, and I'm just frustrated at him, and it turns into a situation, right? Whereas if I'm at 30,000ft and I'm looking at the business and I'm seeing I've got this one technician, man, his production is a little bit off, and everybody's getting a little frustrated and getting a little aggravated. I need to go have a talk. I need to go deal with this. What is going on? Why do you feel the way you feel and nip it in the bud. But if I'm not watching production and I'm not paying attention to what the business is doing, and I'm not maximizing my numbers to where, okay, like, guys, hey, by the way, just so you know, I know nobody's asked for a raise, but we're coming up. We've raised the labor rates. We're making this adjustment, and you're getting this. That's how you do it, right? That's how you make sure they get a yearly raise is you're managing and running the business like a business owner. Now, absentee owner. I've got some feelings on that. I think completely absentee can be dangerous because you don't realize what's happening in the shop, and you can develop a culture that you don't realize that you've developed. And then by the time you go into it, it's so confusing because you don't know who the problem child is. You don't know if it is a problem child. You don't know if it's just the culture of the business. Is it the way we run things? Is it the way we do things? I can see how that would be a problem. But then you look at Mike Allen.
David Roman [01:00:28]:
You have a team in place, lucas Lincoln what are you talking about? The managers to handle all that, and you get a report from them, okay? You come to them and say, hey, this line is not right. These numbers aren't right. You're not hitting this, you're not hitting that. And it's either a staffing issue or you've got a management problem, and you either get rid of the manager, you get rid of the staff, or whatever.
Lucas Underwood [01:00:50]:
That's my point, though, is that's where I was going with that, is that you look at a Mike Allen, and Mike has built that perfectly. Where do I fall in that?
Jeff Compton [01:00:59]:
So when you talk, though, here's where I'm going to interject a little bit. And I'm not trying to argue with David, but you've got to remember, sometimes in my traditional experience, what I've seen is the manager tends to be somebody that with a lot of years of seniority. And it became a situation where they were put in that position, maybe, whether they were qualified or not, to keep them within the business instead of paying them out. Severance right. They maybe got too old to continue to be a foreman or a tech, and they made them a manager. That's a very real situation from me as the experience that I've had in a dealership. That tends to be the trend that it goes. So what happens oftentimes is you'll see a lot of techs or even some advisors, just like Chris Craig's episode that just dropped, that get sacrificed at the altar of management because management was there when the building was put up and management to get rid of them. The severance would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So you might have heard me talk about it. I had a service manager that had been when I worked at Orleans Dodge Chrysler. He'd been in the business for 20 some years at that particular store, he was not well liked. He was probably not what most would consider to be a good manager. He had made his way from being a tech to foreman to manager when they finally terminate.
David Roman [01:02:17]:
Okay, jeff but was that guy producing the numbers that his owners, the owners.
Jeff Compton [01:02:24]:
Our service department was the only thing that was keeping the lights on because the sales department couldn't move cars. David.
David Roman [01:02:32]:
And that service department was being ran by that guy that nobody liked.
Jeff Compton [01:02:36]:
They didn't like him from his Abrasive. He was a very abrasive abrupt. He might have been bipolar. He would bring a lot of his home life to work with him. And you could feel the tension in the building. David when he walked in, you knew what his mood was before you ever laid eyes on could. It was literally like he had that aura when he walked in, you could feel the energy shift in the building. When they finally terminated, the place was.
David Roman [01:03:01]:
Making money, though, right?
Jeff Compton [01:03:03]:
Yeah, it had.
David Roman [01:03:06]:
So when you're an absentee owner, you can say, well, that guy was a bad manager. Okay, by what metric? Field doesn't pay the bills, and so the numbers are coming in, and they're healthy. The assumption has to be because you're not there every day. So the assumption has to be the manager in place is doing what they're supposed to be doing. And, yeah, I totally understand what you're saying, Jeff. I 100% get what you're saying. But at the end of the day, for the people that are paying the bills, for the people that have invested tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars into this business, they need to see a return. And if this guy, as an ahole, is bringing in a return, then how you feel about him is irrelevant to that owner, because they're bringing in money, and that's all that matters. And, look, you can say that, well, this is a shift that's happening in the independent world. I think the only reason why that's happening at all is because enough business owners are now realizing that, hey, I don't want to have a job. I want to own a business, because why would I take the risk of business ownership and also the BS of having a job? Why would I do both? Either want to have a job and I have paycheck, and if they fire me, I just go find another job, and that's great. And I do w two easy. I know you don't have that in Canada, but here, for a normal salary employee or hourly employee to file your taxes is like three clicks on a smartphone and you're done. You take a picture of your w. Two or half the time it's uploaded automatically. You hit a couple of buttons, you sign, and you get your return, and then that's it. And everybody's been conditioned to that methodology of filing your taxes. And they expect that little bonus at the end of the year. That $1,000 1000, 503,000, 5000. If you got a couple of kids, it turns into $10,000 plus. Even if you have enough children, everybody's been conditioned to that. I don't get that because I'm a business owner. I can't do that as a business owner, right. I've taken on the risk of audits. I've taken on the risk of having to pay all these taxes out. I've taken on the regulatory risk, the safety and environmental hazard, compliance risk. And then on top of that, I also have to do the job too. No, I'm not doing that. Screw that. I'm going to blow my brains out if I have to do that. Enough owners have seen that. They've seen the light and go, you know what? I'm not doing that either. Screw that noise. What I'm going to do is not be at work every day. What I'm going to do is if, hey, let's take a vacation next week and then just go on vacation and not have to worry about the business because the business is going to run because I've put the right people in place. And the fact that somebody doesn't like the manager that I put in place. Are the numbers coming in correct? Yes. I don't care that you don't like the guy. You don't like the guy, quit, quit and go find somewhere else to work because that guy is a good enough manager to know that you don't want to be there and they need to go and they're going to find somebody else and I don't have to worry about any of it. Now, that might seem callous or that might seem like you don't want to go that direction.
Jeff Compton [01:06:44]:
When you look at the idea, when you just said about how they're just going to find another one reach and replace another one, I think that the very stark reality that we see daily posted is that that is the obstacle. We see owners and David, I love you. I'm not trying to argue with it, but we see owners every day that are saying they're struggling to find a replacement. We're talking about.
David Roman [01:07:07]:
Those are not the shops that we're talking about, though. Jeff, you have to see this. If what you're saying is true, every chain that I see around me should be closing up or struggling to find people. And they're not. They're flipping, expanding. The franchises are selling left and right. They're selling to somebody who sells them that model that just run them ragged, pump out as many cars you're working seven days a week. We're going to be open all these hours we're going to run 1999 oil changes. This is the model. This is the way they are making money. Let handle over fist and people are showing up in droves to work there. I don't know why. It seems insane to me in my mind, what I advocate for, what Lucas advocates for, what we see some of our in our very teeny, tiny, infinitesimally small group of shop owners, what they advocate for. We need to take care of employees. We need to make sure everybody's whole. We need to make sure that our customers are taken care of. We need to make sure that we're at least charging enough to make this sustainable. That doesn't scale at all. That doesn't scale in any way, shape or form. The minute you expand a second location, third location, fourth location that gets thrown out the window, you need something that is measurable, that is repeatable and can be done over and over and over again. I was talking to a shop owner who at one point was going to close the doors, was struggling immensely, got hooked up with that model. He does a ton of charity work. The guy has a giving heart. He pumps out the charity work like crazy. He's on his fourth location. Even 3 million, 4,000,005, $6 million a year business that he's built from having a single location to this, how did he build that? He followed the model. Now you can say anything. That guy understood that what I'm doing now and you can look at what I do on a daily basis, that what I do cannot be scaled. And he wanted to build that level of business. And so you have to somehow convince everybody that has opened up a business that, hey, you're not going to be able to scale this if you want to, quote, unquote, do it the right way.
Lucas Underwood [01:09:47]:
Here's what sucks about it is because a lot of those people, right, and we've had some of them in the group and there's been some discussions, they say, well, it couldn't be wrong because we're making money, but profit is not that doesn't make it right.
David Roman [01:10:06]:
Right. We're putting the wrong you were just talking about that with that technician who said you can't charge that customer 1.5 if the book says one. You can't say that he's doing it the wrong way because he's making money and that's his measuring stick. That may not be your measuring stick, but that's that guy's measuring stick.
Lucas Underwood [01:10:28]:
And we can't say you're exactly right. We can't say it's wrong. And I'm not going to say Dutch has said it many times. It's an extremely profitable way to do business. There's zero doubt about that. The thing that concerns me or the thing that challenges me with that is.
David Roman [01:10:46]:
That I have yet to find an alternative.
Lucas Underwood [01:10:48]:
Deer there's no long term consequence is what we live in right now. That is the long term consequence situation. Yeah, a technician shortage. People who are jaded and frustrated with the industry.
David Roman [01:11:03]:
But they're going to come back and say, who cares? There's always going to be somebody else waiting to take their place. And yeah, you could say technician shortage. I say there is no technician shortage. I say there's an overabundance of garbage shops that are willing to do work on people's cars. Okay? So they're looking at it the same way and they're saying, well, those shops will just go away. More cars for me and those employees. That one or two technicians working in that shop and the one or two technicians working at the other shop, they're going to be looking for work. Even if 75% of those four techs leave the industry, I don't care. The one that doesn't is going to come work here because I'm the only place in town. We're trying to appeal to them with our set of standards, our set of ethics, our set of morals. They don't care. They're making money.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:01]:
And to them, we're wrong. Right?
Jeff Compton [01:12:03]:
To them.
Lucas Underwood [01:12:06]:
Exactly. Because we're not over here making the money that we could make, and we're not over here doing the things that we could do.
David Roman [01:12:13]:
You think Jayha is listening to this while he's flying his airplane? No, he's on a cruise, and when he gets off the cruise, he jumps in his airplane and goes flies around. Do you think he gives two flips? He doesn't care. He's going to go buy another plane. And what are we doing? Arguing about how wrong it is that he charges 1999 for his oil changes? Do you see the absurdity in it?
Lucas Underwood [01:12:39]:
Of course I do. Of course I do. And that's why it's so damn frustrating.
Jeff Compton [01:12:45]:
I don't even know where you two are now.
David Roman [01:12:46]:
Did you tune out? Did I go in too many different directions? Lucas?
Lucas Underwood [01:12:51]:
No, it made perfect sense to me. Okay, well, ask the question. Let's dig in. Let's dig in and figure out why.
Jeff Compton [01:12:57]:
With all due respect, I think you're used to that, David, how many directions he can go at once. And I'm not as used to it. And that's why I got lost. I tried to I didn'tune just it went so many different directions at one time.
David Roman [01:13:10]:
It seemed like I was trying to be insulting. I generally want to know because I guarantee you we're going to get a comment in the Facebook group or whatever. I lost David an hour and ten minutes into that podcast. What the hell he was talking about.
Jeff Compton [01:13:26]:
Take any kind of offense. I got lost. I got lost. I can listen to it.
Lucas Underwood [01:13:32]:
Okay. Basically what David is saying is that there are organizations who run their businesses differently. And Dutch has said this many times that that model is extremely profitable. Right. And as he pointed out, they will always have technicians. There will always be people in those bays working for those shops. They will always be making money. It's a shame. We see so many techs say, well, squeeze them out and don't go to work for them for this. While that could be a solution, the reality is it's never going to happen. Right. They'll always have somebody. The sad part is all that's going to end up doing is it's going to mean that those shops only have unqualified dummies working for them?
David Roman [01:14:24]:
Not necessarily.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:28]:
If the smart techs starve them out, they will hire somebody who doesn't have yes.
David Roman [01:14:33]:
And the customer is not going to know the difference. And what's most insidious? The most insidious part of it is these large dealership groups going to the schools. We want fresh meat. So here is a spit them out.
Lucas Underwood [01:14:47]:
Yeah.
David Roman [01:14:47]:
Here's a $10 million endowment that you guys get to have for your VoTech program. I just need first dibs that's it oh, quote unquote, opportunity to work at this dealership. And they just want fresh meat. And so they just have to sell enough kids on the idea that they're going to make all this money as a technician to enter the school, this beautiful building, this beautiful facility with all brand new equipment, right. Sell them on the idea that that's how they're going to go work on. And I've got my little drudgy shop that it's well lit, but the floor is dirty or whatever, and there's crap piled up everywhere, and I'm not going to sell them on that. But they walk into that dealership that gave that $10 million endowment, and they're going to look at all that brand new equipment, all this lighting, man, that looks so nice. That's where I'm going to go work. And what do they do? They chew them up, they spit them out. Three years later, they're out of the industry. Do you think the dealership cares? They don't care why. They just keep pumping money into the schools.
Lucas Underwood [01:15:45]:
And the schools, the measure of success is simply the dollar bill for them.
David Roman [01:15:49]:
That's all that matters, right?
Lucas Underwood [01:15:51]:
To them, that's really what David's getting at in all of this, is that the only measure of success that they depend on, the only measure of success that they look at is the dollar bill.
Jeff Compton [01:15:59]:
Was I profitable?
Lucas Underwood [01:16:01]:
Right? And so that's why when we talk to those other guys who believe something different than we do, they're like, how can you not want to come and go to one of these events and see what we do? Because if you'll just come, you'll see how much money you can make. Dude, it's not about the money. You don't understand.
David Roman [01:16:18]:
And you'll feel great doing it, right? You'll get all the feels.
Lucas Underwood [01:16:22]:
Dude, if you know how many technicians I've talked to who work for those shops, and they're like, Dude, it's miserable here. It sucks. But I care more about the people who work for me than that. I don't want it to be that I talked to somebody at one of those and the very first thing they ever said to me was, go back and fire all your employees. Right? Yeah, but these are human beings. Well, I don't care. You're not running a family. This is a business that's not wrong. Right? Like, I'm not going to say that's wrong. It's not even necessarily unsound advice. It's that that's not who I am. Right? I've told you stories about my dad, and you got to meet my dad and my mom, and you see how they run their business and the people they brought down here that they help with their business, that they bring down here just to come down here and eat, right? And they take care of them, and they treat them genuinely like their family, right? Like, that's who I am as a human being. That's what I do. Yet those people are going to look at us and look at us like we're crazy.
David Roman [01:17:17]:
Here's the thing. I admire what your parents did and the stories that you tell about your parents. They're fascinating to me. And what is most interesting is that they were able to be that way and still generate a ridiculous amount of money. And I am dying to find that model in the automotive world, and I've yet to find it. And all I'm doing I know I'm making mistakes. I know I'm making mistakes. A lot of them.
Lucas Underwood [01:17:59]:
Yeah, me too.
David Roman [01:18:01]:
I act and I look back and I go, well, I shouldn't have done that. And I wonder if I'll get there or I'll go broke trying. I don't know which one will happen.
Jeff Compton [01:18:14]:
Here's what I don't want.
Lucas Underwood [01:18:16]:
Or the other.
Jeff Compton [01:18:16]:
Again, my apologies. Lucas's family's business model will not work in this sector of our industry. And I'll tell you why. I think this is just my opinion. You probably argue with it anyway, is that it's because his parents sell as an experience, right? You got to remember, if they're on a vacation, this is a once in a lifetime experience for those people that are going to come and see the gravity defying phenomenon. It's something that people do to create a memory. What we do is create charges on something that people begrudgingly have to continue to pour money into as they own. Your you wish you could have that, David, but you've got to remember, if you wish that for somebody, you have to attack the enthusiast market versus the daily driver market. That's why so many techs prefer or you'll hear them know, I left and I went to work on Power Sports or I want to work on Harley Davidson, something like that, right? Because people want to invest in that because of the feeling and euphoria experience that it gives them when they're fixing that, when they're enjoying it, when we're just fixing Mrs. Smith's camry. It's a very noble, important thing, but you cannot create that business model based on that, because it's something where their emotions are tied, is in a completely different place when they come to make that transaction. Does that make sense?
David Roman [01:19:58]:
Yeah, I can understand what you're saying there. I see experience based businesses fail. You see amusement parks close. They go bankrupt. They're selling an experience. Then why didn't they succeed? And little roadside attractions fail all the time. Or they're dilapidated and run down and they built a business around what they had without resorting to tactics that cheapened. I wouldn't even say cheapened that violated their personal ethics, their personal morals. And here's what it comes down to. At the end of the day, for somebody that takes that approach, it's the do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? They're going to treat other people the way they would want to be treated if they were in that particular situation. That's how they approached it. And they were still able to build a successful business. And I am having a hell of a time trying to figure out a way to do that in the automotive world because yeah, would it be easy for me to cheapen my oil changes and make them 1999 and pump as many cars into the shop and tell everybody, if you're not flagging 45 hours a week, you're fired. And could I do all that? Absolutely. I could do all that. I personally would not want to be the customer that gets that coupon and acts on it, knowing what I know about vehicles. I would not want to be the technician who has to come to work to that pressure every single day. I would not want to be the service advisor that has to turn that many sales. You see what I'm saying? And so that particular environment is not something I want to impose on my staff, so I try to impose on my staff the type of environment that I personally want to show up and work at. But the numbers still have to be the numbers and the money still has to be the money.
Lucas Underwood [01:22:11]:
You've got to be able to pay the bills. You got to be able to pay the bills.
David Roman [01:22:14]:
And they were able to balance it. His parents were able to balance it. And that's all I'm saying, is not that we're selling this versus what they're selling. And I think you can take that approach in any business. In some instances, you see businesses succeed building that type of environment, and there are a lot of them that don't build that environment and succeed. And then you see a lot that try to build that environment, maybe don't do it the right way and fail. And then a lot of them that do it the wrong way and still fail or do know the profitable way.
Lucas Underwood [01:22:54]:
And still hang on. So go ahead, Jeff.
Jeff Compton [01:22:57]:
In business, we have to remember, right? It's about do you want to play long ball or do you want to get like if you just want to open one shop, make a bunch of money, and then maybe you want to decide, you want to diversify your portfolio and go somewhere else and you want to sell it, right? This is what I've seen some of the dealers doing where I came from, Ottawa, they're now starting to sell some of those dealers off to dealer groups, which are I'm talking like our national groups, like, they own hundreds and hundreds of dealerships across multiple provinces, all owned by one singular dealer group. So that person that maybe it's a second generation, third generation dealership, it's just part of their now portfolio. Now, they've played long ball, right? In the sense that it's been in the family for three generations, whatever, they played longball. But for somebody that say, just wants to open a repair shop and they open it, they do it for a couple of years, they build it into something and they sell it, that's a lot of people that don't want to play long ball. So maybe their business model and method of how they want to do it doesn't rely on so much on like, well, okay, so Mrs. Smith's daughter now brings her car and know the granddaughter of Mrs. Smith, she's now becoming of age and she's starting to drive. They're going to continue to go to like, LNN performance, right, as an example, or your shop, David, whereas somebody that might open a business and then see a trend change in business or in the industry or might look at the technology and go, I don't want to tool up for all of that ADAS. Whatever EV they may decide they want to get out, if they never had the plan to be in it ten years, they're going to approach their business method to get to the goal of whatever that could be in a very different process than somebody that sees themselves never being without the business. I think that's the difference between long ball and playing a visionary short ball, right?
Lucas Underwood [01:24:59]:
So look, here's the thing. As you all sit here and talk about this here's what I think about is I think about being a kid in a family business, right? And I don't think either of one of you have been in that experience. And so, growing up, I remember mom and dad arguing over money and fighting over money and crying over money. And I remember bill collectors and I remember good times and I remember bad times. I remember the building burning down in 89 when I was just a kid. I remember there was this restaurant thing and my dad had gone in, and my family had always owned restaurants first, and my dad had gone in with somebody on a potential for a restaurant. And dad had laid out this game plan and this strategy, and they took the strategy and built the business without him, even though he had paid for the plans and paid for everything to. Make it happen. Yeah. I think part of that has made me who I am today, because I realize it didn't come to full circle until later in life when I started realizing that not everybody's your friend, not everybody's out to help you. Right? Like, there are people here out to get you. And it sucks, but it's true. I remember, and David and I have talked about this at length. I don't know if I've shared it with you, but there was a pastor that my dad really wanted to help and really wanted to do things for. And he came to my dad and he said, hey, the ministry is going to fail if you don't take all this property that we went in on together. And it was a substantial amount of money, and it was payments that very few people could have made. And I got upset about it, and to this day, and I realized this progression through life, right? I remember them arguing over money when I was a kid. I remember things not going well and us not having money to go do things. And then I remember things, they got better and better and better. And then when all that happened with that, and it was these huge payments, and I'm, like, freaking out about it. I'm like, dad, why in the world would you say yes? What were you thinking? Why did you do this? And he said, Son, don't worry about it'll. Be all right. I'm like, yeah, but what if this happens? And he's like, It doesn't matter what happens. Everything's going to be fine. This doesn't define who we are. This is a business. We've been through way worse, and we'll be through way worse again. And we've been through way better, and we'll be through way better again. It just is. Don't put so much focus on the thing that's, like, right in front of you. So we sit here and we have these conversations, and they feel so big, right? But now I'm looking back, and as you all are having this conversation, I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking, man, maybe none of it's this big. Maybe we talk about my parents success. Maybe they didn't plan to be successful. Maybe they didn't make the right decisions. Maybe this road to success was paved with potholes and all of these different challenges and these things.
Jeff Compton [01:28:07]:
Maybe the fact is, you and our generation sees it as, like, the business defines what the family is. And maybe your parents the family is what we are, and the business is just something that we have. And maybe that's the difference. You grew up in the business exactly. Right. It was around you all the time. It was so forefront of the Underwood family identity mystery. Hill but to your mom and your father, it's just something they did. It's a way that they made money, one of more than one way that they made money. Right. Your father also had a business building houses and all that kind of jazz. That, I think, is where this generation, my generation, your generation, maybe some of David's, we're focused because we're focused on the money. We're focused on what it is we do the job and let's be real. Family is not what it used to be. Your parents. It's a completely different mindset. It's a completely different culture. Right? And we can go into all the different scenarios of fragmented. Why is it and that's not really the part of this conversation that this whole podcast is about. But at the end of it, if you're going to be in business, you have to remember that it shouldn't define who you are as a person, but you shouldn't sacrifice who you are as a person either, to define the business. Does that make sense? You don't sacrifice your morals and your ethics. This is why I have so much respect for you, because you don't. It's very obvious, both of you gentlemen, you will not do it. Right. And that's been the beauty of me as I've started to network with more of the shop owners and stuff. I have a pretty good nose for genuine people. And that was the beauty of being able to go to ASE was to meet these genuine people. Why am I such a fan of Dutch? Right? Because he's the most transparent person I've met in this industry, yet he's exactly as what he says. You know what I mean? You don't have to think about it, you just feel it, that he's exactly what he says, and his core is right there for everybody to see exactly what he thinks and what he feels. And that kind of conviction is so rare anymore, and it's rare in our industry. So to be able to be around people that are that way in this industry, that's the only reason that I'm still in it. And I still have the faith that that's why I do the podcast, because I'm not talking to every technician that's out there. I don't have enough there isn't enough days left on my clock to talk to every one of them, but I want to talk to the ones that have the conviction and the gumption to tell people how they feel and why they feel that way and then give input as to what they wish was different. They might be right or wrong, right? Yep.
Lucas Underwood [01:31:14]:
I got a question. So last year was the first time you ever went to AST, and now this will be your second year going. What are you going into this with a different do you have a different mindset approaching this time? Are you thinking about this differently when we talked about the fact that you're going to come again and have you thought about it?
Jeff Compton [01:31:41]:
When I went last time about it, I didn't know what to expect other than it was just like, oh, there's some training courses that I'm signed up for, and I'm going to take one management course. And the leadership course that I was going to take got canceled and then a bunch of Was technical courses. And this time I'm not going to have a set schedule of classes that I'm going to sit in. I'm going to sit in a bunch for a couple of minutes here and there. But the reality is I just want to go and continue to meet as many of the people that have reached out to me since I was there last year and sit down with them and have this exact kind of conversation or the kind of conversations that I've been recording with people and having their episodes. Just tell me what you think of being here. If you're a multiple time person, why do you keep coming back? Right. I think that's a very important thing to think too, because if you're coming back and you're already like, a really smart guy, are you getting more and more out of the training? Or is it the networking thing? Does it give you because I know when I come away from it, I feel motivated. Like I can go back to my life and my job with resolve, that I am making a difference, that I am in a situation to where I can improve my industry by attending that, by networking with these people, by hearing their input, I can bring it into my job and share it and make it better. It's not my shop. I'm not in control of it. But if I can teach somebody just a little bit of culture that I picked up from somebody way more successful than myself and people that I work with, if they take one little nugget from it, how is that not worth it? If everybody goes home with that and does that, how long will it take to change? It? Not that long. Think of the difference. But people have to do it.
Lucas Underwood [01:33:34]:
I know we've talked a lot about my parents, but I mean, my dad always told me when growing up, he's like it's when they walk out of here. It's how you made them feel. It's the things you told them and the impact you made on them. And this is bigger than just like a roadside tourist attraction. Like, you have an impact on their life. And every person that you talk to and everything you say to every person matters. Right? And I think that's something that can get lost on us sometimes. And I think it's sad that social media, to a degree, has taken that away because we don't realize how important the words that come out of our mouths are.
Jeff Compton [01:34:09]:
Well, I mean, think about how small the world is. I'm probably not the first person from Kingston, Ontario that's ever walked onto Mystery Hill, right? It's very unlikely. It's very unlikely. But think about how many people your parents lives they've touched just by saying hello or good morning or whatever, right. And going on a tour and telling them about what is there. Your parents, if they actually sat down and thought about that, that could be a very overwhelming feeling. Right? But they don't, because it's just what they do. It's just what they do. And my role in all of this is just what I've always done, which is just talk about it. Right. Share my frustrations with people, with the industry, and try to be more open about why is it the way it is? And if we all agree that it needs to be improved, which I think everybody agrees that it needs some improvement, let's work to it. We're going to have all kinds of different opinions and arguments about how do we do it. Flat rate is the problem. No, flat rate is the greatest thing ever. That's not what it's about. It's about.
Lucas Underwood [01:35:21]:
Maybe we start with nixing the entitlement. Maybe we start with nixing the judgment. We seek first to understand what other people are saying and truly dig in to understand. Maybe we start with kindness, right? Maybe when somebody posts something we don't agree with, instead of jumping all over them, we say, hey, man, help me understand what you're getting at.
Jeff Compton [01:35:47]:
That's something. Find a better way to posit. I'm sure I'm doing better at in terms of trying to ask, right? Show me what your job posting looks like. Tell me what you're offering. Tell me why it is that people don't want to you can't get people to come work for you now. Sometimes it really gets you frustrated, and it makes you angry, and you want to jump to conclusions when they don't bother to answer the question. Right. And you can immediately go to that place and go, yes, it's still the round peg in the round hole. It's exactly what we thought. But that's just still a knee jerk reaction, and it's stupid, and it doesn't solve anything.
Lucas Underwood [01:36:23]:
So let me ask you this. Since we've had those conversations about that, since we've had the conversations about slowing down a little bit before you respond and think about what it is, has that changed the way that people interact with you?
Jeff Compton [01:36:38]:
I don't know if it's changed the way people interact with me. I think it's more it's changed the way I interact with them. I just think that maybe more people want to interact with me that I would have never thought would want to interact with me.
Lucas Underwood [01:36:53]:
Do you think it has had an impact on how you live your life and the benefit that you've got from those relationships that you've gained? Can you tell a difference in the way that life is right now compared to just with that little change, with slowing down and trying to understand what somebody's saying first?
Jeff Compton [01:37:11]:
Well, the impact it's made is the fact that it's like we can talk about things at my job that have me concerned, have me worried. But the job is just now part of my day. You know what I mean? It's no longer my whole identity. It's still what I do. It's still a job. But my purpose is to now be connecting with more people that have a similar experience and a similar concern and a similar opinion and sharing that, trying to get them to understand where I was, to how I got to where I am. Right. And can I put a dot on the map and say I'm exactly at this place? No, I can't. It changes. It moves around. But if I can get more people opening up and being comfortable about speaking the way they feel without fear of repercussions, because that's a lot of it, right? You wouldn't believe the amount of people that contact me and say, I wish I could talk about what I want to feel, but I feel like I would be labeled as this. It's amazing. Some of the people that have reached out to me, you would not think that they would be concerned, right? They have a skill set that would be like, they could go anywhere they wanted, but they're still concerned about that. And I don't know why it is for me that I feel so comfortable that it's like, I'm not worried if people want to judge me as whatever I am, people have judged me, right? For ten years that I've been ranting online, people have judged me. People have made assumptions about me. I'm good with it. Some of it's not wrong. But the reality is something had to be done, something had to happen. Was I put here to do that? I don't know. But, I mean, I feel like we're finally moving in a direction where we're getting more people talking about the industry, right? If Mike Allen will sit down with me and share a glass of bourbon and talk about his perspectives and my perspectives and we find common ground there, that's a pretty strong pretty that's a pretty respected individual in our industry, right, that can see common light. Do we agree on every little thing? No. But the fact that we're comfortable enough with each other, that we can joke and rib and enlighten each other, I'd have never thought ten years ago that me just starting to talk to random strangers in a Facebook group would ever get to this ever. Right?
Lucas Underwood [01:39:49]:
Amen, buddy. Thank you for being here.